SELF-MONITORING AND TRAIT-BASED VARIANCE IN LEADERSHIP - AN INVESTIGATION OF LEADER FLEXIBILITY ACROSS MULTIPLE GROUP SITUATIONS

Response flexibility as a basis for leadership was examined. Ss were 108 students who completed the self-monitoring scale and four group tasks, interacting with different people on each task. Tasks required as leader styles either initiating structure, consideration, persuasion, or production emphasis. After each task, group members rated each other on perceived leadership and on four scales corresponding to the aforementioned leader styles. Results indicated that 59% of the variance in leadership emergence was trait based; for two of the four tasks, leader rankings were significantly correlated with task-relevant behaviors; and self-monitoring was significantly correlated both with average leader rankings and with task-relevant behaviors on two of the tasks. These findings suggest that trait-based variance in leadership may be due to social perceptiveness and response flexibility.